‘Pegaxy’ Game Studio Mirai Labs Leaves Polygon for Avalanche Subnet

Mirai Labs, the crypto gaming studio behind the blockchain game Pegaxy—as well as the PGX token, the Petopia app, Mirai app, and Mirai Pay—has moved its entire ecosystem to its own Avalanche subnet, Mirai has shared exclusively with Decrypt.

In an interview, Mirai Labs CEO and co-founder Corey Wilton shared that Mirai’s CTO, Steve Nguyen, spurred the move to Avalanche.

“We just looked at what was readily available on the tech side and went with Avalanche,” Wilton told Decrypt. “And turns out they actually help. So that was just a big bonus.”

While the Ava Labs team building the Avalanche blockchain isn’t a game publisher, its team has taken steps to offer help to game developers. Back in June, for instance, Ava Labs announced the Avalanche Arcad3—a program that connects game developers with crypto firms to help game devs explore blockchain’s potential.

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Mirai’s CEO explained that Polygon Labs, by comparison, didn’t provide much “assistance” to develop games and crypto projects on their Ethereum sidechain.

“It felt as if we had no assistance in some sense,” Wilton said of Mirai’s time on Polygon.

Now, the crypto gaming studio has migrated to its own Avalanche subnet and turned its Pegaxy gaming governance token, PGX, into its Subnet’s official gas token. Pegaxy is a play-to-earn horse-racing game where its winged, mechanical NFT horses called “Pegas” can race, be “bred” to make more Pegas, or rented out to other players.

Mirai Labs now joins the growing number of game developers—like the teams behind the upcoming first-person shooters Shrapnel and Off the Grid—building their own Avalanche subnets.

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“Being a mobile studio, we wanted a very specific user experience. And the subnets allowed us to control the gas, meaning essentially we can pay for the gas, right? So that was like the first green flag for us,” Wilton explained. “And obviously, the flexibility, the fact that they have all of the infrastructure ready, the documentation.”

The Mirai team has also launched an iOS and Android animal-themed dungeon-crawling RPG game called Petopia, where players can make in-app purchases with crypto via the Mirai app.

Petopia also has a “SocialFi” feature, allowing players to create their own competitive groups or guilds that others can buy fractions or “fragments” of using Ethereum—similar to Friend.tech’s “keys.” Fragments are unlimited in quantity and will be priced on a bonding curve. Gamers will also be able to trade their tokenized “seats” or spots in their guilds. Guilds earn rewards based on their leaderboard positions, with members sharing in those earnings, according to a statement. Wilton calls this “GuildTech.”

Leaving nothing but dust in the racetrack! 💨

Massive shoutout to Mark Valencia for this adrenaline-packed gameplay video.

Now, it’s YOUR turn to show us what you’ve got! Let’s see those screenshots and clips! 🎬 pic.twitter.com/xd0215k8v0

— Pegaxy (@PegaxyOfficial) August 23, 2023

Mirai Labs’ CEO also teased a potential Petopia token airdrop in the future.

But when it comes to gaming tokens more broadly, Wilton sees most of the token space as “just for degens.”

“Looking at the broader ecosystem, a singular token revolving around the game is just the perfect means for speculation on whether the game is doing well or not,” Wilton said on the future of gaming tokens.

“I think really, that is all that people need to consider purchasing a token,” he added. “That’s just the reality of the space. If it has utility, it’s a bit of a narrative bonus, I think.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward